Means for forming and decoding secret messages



March 21, 1939.

MEANS FOR FORMING AND DECODING SECRET MESSAGES J. B. WALKER I Filed July 8, 1935 5 Sheets-Sheet l g3 o 25 s? .22 45m?- i 00000 OOOQO P61; .QQQOQ 00000 32 I: OOOGO 47 00060 :4 I 00000 i 00000 i g gg Q. m M 0000B H lg g a a 0000 1 gwuc/wtcw March 21, 1939. J, B, WALKER 2,151,452

MEANS FOR FORMING AND DECODING SECRET MESSAGES Filed July 8, 1955 5 SheetsSneet 2 2/ S W 0695M, MMM? 1 March 21, 1939. J, B, WALKER MEANS FOR FORMING AND DECODING SECRET MESSAGES Filed July 8, 1935 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 V 22 swam Joafw/ Z3. M44

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March 21,1939. .1. B. WALKER 2,151,452

MEANS FOR FORMING AND DECODING SECRET MESSAGES Filed July 8. 1935 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 0on70 000006000 flooo'noooqnoooo boaoqcocvo OPDQO7WOOOUOQOQQQYQOOQQQ -amt-1000000 B o 0cooaoowcaoooooocwuooocn0000 000 JOSEPH B WQLKER J. B. WALKER March 21, 1939.

MEANS FOR FORMING ANDDECODING SECRET MESSAGES 5 Shets-Sheet 5 Filed July 8, 1935 jwucmb a Jasm/ .5. MAKE? Patented Mar. 21, 1939 PATENT, OFFICE Menus Fort FORMING AND DECODING SECRET MESSAGES Joseph B. Walker, Hollywood, Calif. Application July 8, 1935, Serial No. 30,385

12 Claims.

This invention relates'to apparatus for form;

ing secret messages adapted for transmission to a. distant station without the necessity for any synchronization between the apparatus of the sending and receiving stations. The particular mechanism herein shown and described embodies not only means for forming a secret or. code message by a sending station, but also for decoding messages received from another station.-

Application Serial No. 704,040, Method of and means for recording and reproducing secret messages, filed December 26, 1933, constituting a renewal of my application 611,449, filed.May 16, 1932 and of which applications the present application is a. continuation in part, discloses some of the broader principles of the present application.

It is a primary object of the invention to provide an apparatus of the character indicated, adaptedfor the production and the subsequent deciphering of messages which'itis impossibl for any expert 'to break.

Broadly stated, the invention contemplates the employment of characters indicative of letters of the alphabet, each character in turn being represented by a group of units. These latter may consist of dots and dashes, such as are employed in the Morse code.

In the preparation of the code message, I'not only scramble the complete characters indicative of the respective letters, but I scramble the fractional parts of such letters, in such manner that the integrity of the individual characters is completely lost by the reduction of the characters to their component parts of dots and dashes and then heterogeneously scramble these units until the units present or constitute a sequence devoid of any characteristic significance and which significance; can only be restored to its original 10 'clea'r'text form by means of this invention.

The letter having integrity as such has assigned to it a character composed of dots and dashes. The integrity of the letter is imparted to the character by the assigned sequence of dot and dash. These units, the dots'and dashes of a character, are then broken out" of their characteristic sequence and altered by both substitution and transposition thereof into a garbled sequence, in which all integrity of the char- 50 acters has disappeared, and this is accomplished speedily and automatically.

-Other objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the detailed description which follows.

In the accompanying drawings,

' portion of the key board.

Figure 1 is a plan view of the machine constructed in accordance with the invention.

Fig. '2 is a fragmentary view illustrating a ribbon feed hereinafter described.

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of one of the type' 5 bars and its associated solenoid magnet.

Fig. 4 is an end elevation of the mechanism with the base portion. ofsits case illustrated in full lines and with the cover portion of the case illustrated in dotted lines. 10 Fig. 5 is a fragmentary sectional view illustrating one of the type bars, the platen and some of the magnets.-

Fig. 6 is a transverse sectional view upon line 6-6 of Fig. 1, illustrating a type bar lifting l5 mechanism hereinafter described.

Fig. '7 is a view like Fig. 6 with the parts in another position, and Fig. 7a. is a horizontal section on line la-4a. of Fig. 7.

Fig. 8 is a perspective view of the platen and 20 some of the associated parts.-

Fig. 9 is a fragmentary view illustrating a Fig. 10 is a horizontal sectional view through the stems of someof the keys and illustrating 25 the detent wires of said keys. 1

Fig. 11 is a detailed view of one of the keys upon an enlarged scale.

Fig. 12 is a diagrammatic view illustrating one of the circuits emp1oyed.-

Fig. 13 is a. plan view of the case with the panel's therein. Fig. 14 is a fragmentary sectional view through the base upon line IL-I4 of Fig. 13. f

Fig. 15 is a detailed view illustrating the criss-- 36 cross wiring of the center or transposition panel. 1 Fig. 16' is a detailed sectional view through one side of the key illustrating a swinging shield hereinafter described. Fig.. 17 is a diagrammatic view illustrating a 40 distributor which may be incorporated in the system if desired. Like numerals designate corresponding parts in all of the figures of the'd'rawings.

The particular form of apparatus which 1 have shown for purposes of explanation comprises three general divisions, namely, a key .board through which the operator'closes certain electric circuits to form the-respective characters; one or more changeable panels adapted'to be interposed in and to constitute parts of said electric. circuits and. serving, by the variations imposedby their presence upon said circuits, to bring about the substitution and transposition'hereinafter described, and a printing mechanism com- 66 prising a plurality of type bars controlled by said circuits, each of which bears a dot and dash, the

position of the dot and dash with respect to the printing mechanism determining'the nature of the garbled sequence of the units to be printed.

The key board comprises a plurality of keys consisting of the heads and shanks (i.v These keys are mounted forvertical movement in plates T and 8.- Springs 9 lie between the plate 8 and shoulders ID of the shanks 6. When the buttons 5 out of contact with the contact point H but they do not return entirely to elevated position,

but upon the contrary are'held in a partly depr'essed position by wires |2 which engage an annulargroove|3 of: the shanks. It will be observed that the buttons are arranged in twelve rows of five buttons eachand three rows of four buttons each. .One; side of abattery or other source of E. M. F.indicated at B is connected to any suitable part of the metallic frame of the machine indicated in a general way at H. The

' other side of this battery is connected to the plate 8, the result being that when a key is depressed a circuit is completed from battery 11 to plate 8,

' 'shanki of thedepressedkey, a conductor I5, the substitution and transposition panels indicated at P, P and P conductor I6, and to a solenoid magnet l1, there being one of these magnets associated with each of the buttons. 5. The metal shells of these magnetsare grounded to the metallic plate l4 in which they are mounted andw which constitutes a part of the framework'of the machine. When the solenoids areenergized their'armatures l8 are drawn inwardly and out of engagement-with the detent notches l9 ofthe printing or type bars 20. Springs 2| attached to the bars tend to draw said'bars downwardly. The bars are normally held inelevated position by the engagement of the detents (constituted by the armatures l8 of the solenoids) in the notches or recesses I9 of said bar. A platen 22 mounted upon a swinging frame 23 is adapted to be swungtoward the printing elements constituted by the points 24 and short bars 25 of the printing bars 20 and to press a paper 26 or other message receiving surface against an ink ribbon 21 and to in turn press said ribbon against that one of the printing elements 24 or 25 which happens to' be lying at the printing line X. The points 24, which constitute those elements which produce the dots upon the paper 26, normally lie at the printing line and if none of the buttons 5 were depressed only dots would be printed when the platen was forced against the ribbon. However, when a button is pressed and the corresponding type bar is released, its spring 2| draws said bar downwardly to such an extent as to move the dash printing element 25 on to the printing line.

As before stated, each character to be formed is madeup of a plurality of units, these units being units controlled by the keys of a transverse row upon the key board. Thus, if only the third and fourth buttons in the first row are depressed the result will be to print the character consisting of two dots, two dashes and a dot if the sequence 'of the delivery of the electrical impulses is not interfered with by a garbling or scrambling process. In preparing a message, the operator starts at the top transverse row of buttons, depressed the desired buttons in each successive row until When thebuttons'are released they are eleother 'words,'until the corresponding type bars have been shifted to printing position. The frame 23 is thenswung upon its pivot 23a to bring the paper 28 forcibly against, the ribbon'2'l in the -manner hereinbefore set forth. This movement of the frame23 is under the influence of an operating handle 29 and this handle serves the double function of moving the frame 23 and of resetting ,the parts for the printing of another line of units. However, before the platen is again pressed against the ribbon it is given a partial turn in a manner common in typewriters to space the paper ahead one step and'to bring another portion of the paper into line with the printing.

charactersupon the type bars.

"The means for imparting this partial turning movement to the platen are likethose commonly employed in typewriters and constitute no part a shaft 30; When. thrust. inwardly the arm 3| 'of the present invention; It is thought a de- I tailed description thereof is unnecessary. I ""The frame 23 is normally rocked away from "the type bars under the thrust of springs 2317.,

which projects from the hub 32 of said handle overlies a plunger 33 and when the handle 29 is ;moved outwardly or away from the type bars,

the plunger is depressed and by its thrust upon the tail of an arm 34' rocks shaft 35 against the action of the spring 36. This elevates a reset bar3l which extends fromthe outer end of arm 34 to the outer end of a corresponding arm 34a. The upward thrust of this reset bar 31 serves to reset the type bars because the bar 31 underlies the lower ends of these type bars and when the I bar3l is thrust upwardly such of the type bars as have been lowered are again lifted to such position that the detents'l8 maysnap into the notches IS. The rocking movement of the shaft 35 is also utilized to reset the buttons of the key board. This is accomplished through the medium of a crank 38 on shaft 35 which acts I3 to permit the springs 9 to restore the buttons 7 5 to elevated position. The hub of the handle 29 indicated at 32 is splined upon the shaft 30 so that it may slide toward or from the frame 23. VVhenthrust toward said frame and rocked rearwardly it resets the keys as hereinbefore described while if rocked forwardly when in this position a cam 45 upon shaft 30 acts against a roll 41 upon the frame 23 to thrust the frame toward the type bars to bring about the printing action. If the handle be slipped outwardly or away from the frame 23, the arm 3| is moved out of alinement with plunger 33 and then the frame 23 may be swung rearwardly to carry the platen away from the type bars and to a position where a fresh sheet of paper may be inserted. Downward movement of' the bar 31 under the action of spring 36 is limited by the stops 31a of brackets 31b.

The lever 48 (see Fig. 1) is like the corresponding levers commonly employed upon typewriters for imparting a step by step movement to the platen of such typewriters. This common mechto the ribbon 21.

While I may, if desired, print the units of the scrambled message upon paperin a continuous line and withoutany spacing, it is advantageous from the standpoint of facilitating the scanning of the message to provide means whereby some of the type bars may be held in such elevated position that they will print neither a dot nor a dash to the end that blank spaces will appear in the completed line of units. 'The mechanism for eifecting this is illustrated in Figs. 1, 6, 7 and 8. Arock shaft 53 carries an operating handle 54 andwhen thrust downwardly as inFlg. 6, moves tappet arms 55 upwardly. .These arms thrust against blocks 55 guided by vertical rods 51. These blocks have slots 58 formed in them through which screws 59 pass. The inner ends of these screws engage in blocks 60 which carry opposed angle plates 6! and 62. By loosening the screws 59 the'blocks 60, with their angle plates, may be shifted bodily to the right or to the left, as the case may be, to the limit of the slots 58 and may then be bound in-the position to which they are moved by the tightening of the screws 59. Some of the type bars, for example, every fifth type bar, may be provided with an enlarged head 63 adapted to be engaged by the horizontal extension-of the angle plate 62 while other of the type bars, for example, every sixth type bar, may be provided with an enlarged head 64 (see Fig. '7) which faces in the opposite direction from the corresponding member of Fig. 6 and is adapted to be engaged by the horizontal portion. of the angle plate 6|.

Thus, if the handle 54 (Fig 6) be elevated to lower the block 56 to such position that the notches 63 of every fifth type bar are: brought into alinement with the horizontal-portion .of the angle plate 62 and at a time when thetype bars are in their lowered and normal positions and if the screws 59 are loosened to permit the angle bars to be shifted to the left to engage angle bar 6'2 in the notches 63, the type bars so engaged will be elevated against thetension' of their actuating springs when the handle 54 is again thrust downwardly. Under those circumstances, there would be a blank space between each 'group of four in the printed- .line. By carrying out thefor pingoperation but with theangle plates shif to the right, as in Fig. '7, thenevery v arwill' be elevated to non-printing positionan five units but to have theseunitsappear in groups of four; This does not-mean; however, that one of the units has been, lostbut only that the fifth unit has been carried over into the next sue-1 ceeding groupof four units in the printed line. These panels P, P and I constitute an exceed- 69 upon said studs.

the rows of contact strips 10, H and I2.

. hi "wa of the garbled message will appear upo the;

ingly important part of the present invention. By referring to Fig 4 it will be seen that the mechanism hereinbefore described is contained within a casing comprising a cover section C and a base section B, the-cover section being adapted to merely lift off after the manner of a typewriter cover. The mechanism rests upon a plate (Y-which is hinged at H to the base B and this plate .0 carriers a handle C by which'the plate with the mechanism mounted thereon may swing upwardly to expose the compartment constituted by the base section B and this base section is utilized for the reception of the panels and their associated parts. Each panel comprises a pair of plates 64 and 65 having a row of metallic contact studs 66 along their opposite edges. These panels are adapted to be fitted upon studs 61 upstanding from a sheet of insulating material 68 and held firmly in place by thumb screws The contact studs 66 engage The panel P which is theintake panel may be termed a substitution andspacer panel. -The center panel P is a transposition panel while the panel P also functions as a substitution and spacer panel. These panels 1:" have the rows of contacts upon their opposite edges connected by wires 13 which extend across the panels and make contact upon the opposite sides thereof in any desired order. However, these wires may connect these opposed contacts in groups of four or in groups of five and various other arrangements may be resorted to. The center or transposition panel P has its connecting wires 14 crisscrossed as indicated in Fig. -15 so that an electrical impulse delivered through the contact Ii to one side of this panel at a given point may be delivered to one of .the contacts 12 at a point materially out of line with the delivering contact I I. The combined effect of thus transposing units of the characters through the transposition panel and of substituting some of the elements of one character for an element of the next succeeding character as, for example, where we depress the' keys in groups of five and print in groups of four, or vice versa is to so heterogeneously mix the fractional units of characters as to constitute a scrambled whole in which there is no determined continuity and no definite beginning or ending of individual characters.

The net result of this is to produce a secret message which cannot be decoded by any human being-no matter how skilled he may be insuch work.

' When using this machine to decode a garbled message at a receiving station, the operator takes 'the printed sheet containing such garbled message-or a double thereof and with thatsheet as a guide taps upon the keys of 'the key board designations corresponding to the units of the garbled message and by the use of properly or reversely wired panels he can bring about such reversal of the steps that took place in the formation of the message as to restore the message to straight text or intelligible form.

The garbled message may be transferred from sending to receiving station by messenger, mail,

radio, telegraph, or any other practicable way.

Thus there is no necessity for any synchronization between the, rate of operation of a machine used 10 at the sending station and rate of operation of the machine used at the receiving station.

Referring now to Figs 1 and 16, I5 designates an L-shaped shield adapted to be swung into such position as to overlie the right hand row a of keys and to prevent the operation of this right.

or fifteen rows of four key.., again a total of sixty keys.

As has been previously stated, each letter consists of five units or at least it does so in the particular embodiment of the invention chosen for purposes of illustration. It would, of course, be possible to assign more or less units to a letter. However, referring to the particular embodiment shown in the drawings and more particularly to the diagrammatic Fig. 12, it will be seen that, when the proper keys in a row have been punched on panel P, which is the input or substitution panel, a character has been formed. However, since, as indicated at p, in Fig. 12, the connecting wires crossing this panel may be crossed to get a different relation of contacts at the far side of the panel fed in at the input edge of the panel we will have at the output edge of panel P another arrangement of five units making up a character but a different character from that which has been fed in at the input side. In other words, this panel P is as previously stated, a

true substitution panel, substituting one character for another. The efl'ect of the panel P is that when a, for example, is played on the first line of keys it is converted to something else in the first five group unit and to something else again in each of the succeeding eleven five group units of said panel according to where it falls in the key board. The importance of this is that if a letter such as a were played through the transposition panel P without the intervention of the substitution panel P, it would always produce the same pattern in the equivalent for any given line of the key board; that is, a on the first, fifth and tenth key lines of the key board would produce identical and consequently possibly discernible values in theultimate pattern but with the substitution panel P interposed, the possibility of the code being broken from the aforesaid cause is positively eliminated. The third panel P has also a form of substitution and serves to further protect the secrecy of the formed message by substituting one character for another andgjzhis in a constantly changing and non-repeating fashion and by this scrambling the component units of said letters through the heterogeneous crisscrossing of the wires of panel P, I provide an unbreakable code forming method and apparatus.

Referring now to Fig. 17, the panels P P correspond to the input panel P in Fig. 12. The buttons 5X, 52 represent two of the sixty buttons'on the key board. In using the distributor illustrated in Fig. 17, I prefer to eliminate the spacing in fours and use the hereinbefore described spacing in fives. This is easily accomplished by merely placing the proper five spacer panel in position and lifting the proper spacer keys as described. A source of current,such as a. batteryL, is grounded at one side to the frame of the machine and its other terminal is connected to a rotative post J which carries a swinging contact arm G. Any suitable means may be employed for moving this arm G to bring it into engagement with the contacts F, F F F etc,, said contacts being spaced circumferentially upon a disk N. One form of operating mechanism comprises a plunger H, the inner end of which constitutes a pawl adapted to lent thereof.

engage a suitable ratchet upon the post J. The contacts F, F, F are connected by wires to the terminals (32' of a block R. Panels P", P are arranged to deliver the current from the contacts F F etc. to wires D, D through the binding posts D, D and in such irregular fashion as may be determined by the winding of said panels 1?", P I would prefer to superimpose the last named panels but for the sake of preserving the clarity of the drawings, I have shown them disposed side by side. Furthermore, I may use more than two panels if desired. The wires D, D are attached to spring contacts D D adapted to be depressed in unison by either of the buttons 5X, 52, these buttons being insulated as indicated at 2. When depressed, the contacts D, D engage the contacts E, E and it would depend upon the positionv of the arm G of the distributor as to which of the circuits D, D would be energized. That is to say, the wiring from. contacts F, F, etc. in the distributor through the distributor panels P, P would determine which of either D or D was alive and in condition to route current through the panel P or P.

The contacts E, E are connected by the conductors b, b to the intake sides of the panels P P, the other sides of said panels being connected as hereinbefore described through contacts Ha to either the transposition panel or panels or to the solenoids or otherwise.

It will be observed that whereas the structure hereinbefore described with respect to the set-up of Fig. .12, for example, permits a complete substitution of letters through the substitution panel P, the distributor of Fig. 17 when added to the system provides for a perpetual shifting of the sequence of these substitutions, which gives us a system which not only cannot show any repeats in the same message, but even in a plurality of messages and even where the first twentyfour letters were known, the balance of the message would still be unknown because the distributor introduces unknown sequence variations into the shifting fiow of the substitution panels as well as into the sequence of transposition in the transposition panel.

M indicates a fragment of a cover over the distributor, said covering having a sight opening m therein through which a spot K on'the arm G is visible. This furnishes a starting point common to all new messages and agreed on between sender and receiver.

It will, of course, be understood that what it is desired to protect is not only the particular mechanical structure that has been chosen for purposes of illustration, but any substantial equiva- Consequently, it is to be understood that the invention includes within its pur- 4 view whatever changes fairly come within either the terms or the spirit of the appended claims.

Having described my invention, what I claim is:

1. Apparatus of the character described comprising a plurality of groups of keys, printing bars controlled by said keys, at least two characters carried by each of said bars, means for impressing said characters upon a message carrier at a printing position, one of the group of characters of all of the keys normally lying in printing position, and means for shifting said bars under control of said keys to move the latter characters out of printing position and to bring the other characters of the bars into printing position.

2. Apparatus of the character described comprising a plurality of circuit closing keys, a plucross connections incorporated therein which connections constitute a part of the respective circuits for the purposes set forth.

3. An apparatus of the character described comprising a plurality of circuit closing keys, a plurality of message forming bars corresponding in number to said keys, electrically actuated controlling elements for said bars, separate electric circuits in which said elements and the keys are included, and a plurality of interchangeable panels carrying connectionsconstituting parts of the several circuits and disposed in said circuits, at least one f said panels being provided with crisscross connections to bring about scrambling of the resultant message produced by themessage forming bars.

4. An apparatus of the character described comprising a plurality of circuit closing keys, a plurality of message forming bars corresponding in number to said keys, electrically actuated controlling elements for said bars, separate electric circuits in which said elements andthe keys are included, and a plurality of interchangeable panels carrying connections constituting parts of the several circuits and disposed in said circuits, at least one of said panels being provided with crisscross connections to bring about scrambling of the resultant message and at least one other of said panels having its conections thereacross arranged in spaced groups.

5. A machine of the character described comprising a multiplicity of circuit closing keys, electric circuits in which said keys are included, a

- plurality of character carrying type bars, magnets for controlling the movement of said type bars, said magnets being. likewise included in said circuits and there being one of said circuits for each of said magnets, and a panel comprising a row of contact members along each of its edges and crisscross connections between the contact members which are disposed in said circuits when said panel is in place.

6. A structure as recited in claim 3 in combination with a printing mechanism associatedv with the character type bars, said printing mechanism comprising a platen, and means for forcibly moving said platen towardthe type bars.

7. A structure as recited in claim 3 in combination with a platen, a handle for actuating said platen and mechanism controlled by said handle for resetting the type bar to normal position.

8. A structure-as recited in claim 3 in combination with a printing mechanism comprising a swinging frame mechanism comprising a manually operable handle for swinging said frame to move the platen forcibly toward the type bars, and a ribbon disposed between the type bars and the platen.

9. A structure as recited in claim 3 in combination with a printing mechanism comprising a swinging frame mechanism comprising a manually operable handle for swinging said frame to move the platen forcibly toward the type bars, and a ribbon disposed between the type bars and the platen, and mechanism actuated by said handle for restoring the type bar and the keys to normal position.

10. Apparatus of the character described comprising a key board, a printing system and a plurality of panels interposed between the key board and printing system and constituting parts of electric circuits through which the movements of the character on the key board is imparted to the elements of the printing system, the wires of one of said panels being so disposed as to convertcharacters delivered to the input edge of said panel to a different character at the output edge of said panel and the wires of another of said panels being so disposedas to transpose the individual units which form such characters.

11. Apparatus of the character described, comprising a mesage forming mechanismincluding a plurality of keys controlling the message forming elements of said mechanism, an electric circuit controlled by each of said keys, a panel crosswired to form an input letter substitution panel, the cross connections of which are included in said circuits when said panel is in place, a distributor interposed in the said circuits, and means for causing said distributor to repeatedly shift the sequence of the substitutions effected by said panel.

12. An apparatus as recited in claim 11, wherein the distributor comprises a movable contact arm, means for causing said arm to travel, a plurality of contacts with which the arm engages in its travel, a pair of panels, means for connecting some of said contacts to one of said panels and for connecting other of said contacts to the other of said panels, and circuits controlled by said keys and constituting connections between the last named panels and the letter substitution panel whereby determination as to which of the circuits of the substitution panels will be energized by the closingof'a key is controlled by the position JOSEPH B. WALKER. 

